Landscaping becomes more and more popular in recent years because people have a much higher demand on quality of the living environment. A series of outdoor lights are usually installed to illuminate buildings, gardens, pathways, and entranceways for safety purposes by reducing and eliminating dark hiding places and unobserved entry points for intruders. Moreover, the outdoor lights can be arranged to decorate the gardens, patios or yards to enhance the aesthetic value thereof. However, one problem of many conventional outdoor light fixtures is that once the lighting fixture is installed, it is very difficult and inconvenient to uninstall and the process to uninstall is usually costly and labor-intensive. It poses a serious problem if the homeowner likes to frequently change the location of the lighting fixtures for different designs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,953,257 to Pusch discloses an outdoor light mounting system that provides a simple installation method for outdoor lighting fixtures. The outdoor light mounting system includes a foundation member in the form of a mildly compressible pipe member that is mounted in the ground, and an adapter that may form an electrical connection box, and a light standard can be mounted on the adapter. However, as can be seen in FIG. 1, Pusch's light mounting system still has too many components that have to be assembled/disassembled when the homeowner wants to install or uninstall the lighting fixture, which may cause the same problems as discussed above.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,073,919 to Masina discloses a light assembly including an elongate support having an upper end and an opposing lower end, and a light fixture. The elongated support incorporates an attached stake, which is to be forcibly inserted into the ground for supporting assembly in an upright condition as shown in FIG. 2. Even though the installation method proposed by Masina is less complicated than Pusch, the light assembly may not be stably secured on the ground with only one stake, especially when the light fixture is large and bulky. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 6,802,630 to Doppelt discloses a portable outdoor lighting device. Even though a portable outdoor lighting fixture is easy to move without complicated installation process, it cannot be secured on the ground and may be easy to fall due to external forces, which may injure people or damage the lighting fixture.
Therefore, there remains a need for a new and improved method and apparatus to easily and securely install and uninstall fixtures on the ground to overcome the problems stated above.